The Only Hurricane in the World You Can Learn to Fly
Battle of Britain veteran V7497 is now approved for fully remunerated flight training — and the pilots who solo her can carry on flying her
Various companies will teach you to fly a Spitfire. But once you’ve gone solo, what then? The likelihood is that an owner isn’t about to hand you the keys.
That single problem — the gap between training on a warbird and actually being allowed to fly one — is what Hurricane 501 Operations has set out to solve. The name references No 501 Squadron, with which Hawker Hurricane I V7497 flew during the Battle of Britain. And what makes the programme different is simple: having soloed on the Hurricane, newly trained pilots can go on flying her.
“Now, with V7497, there’s the opportunity to go further still, because we have the CAA’s permission to provide fully remunerated flight training on the Hurricane,” says Dr Peter Kirkpatrick, the aircraft’s majority owner. “As a result, the Hurricane is unique in that it will be the only one worldwide available for training and maintaining currency.”
From neurosurgery to Merlin power
Peter Kirkpatrick came to all this by an unusual route. An eminent neurosurgeon, he retired from the NHS this summer to focus on the aircraft — “to make the business side work, and obviously to fly her myself.”
His flying began with hang-gliding as a medical student, moved through flex-wing microlights and light aeroplanes, and took a significant step up in 2009 with his own Pitts S-2A Special. The Hurricane, via a good deal of Harvard time, followed a few years later.
“I made contact with Tony Ditheridge at Hawker Restorations, which was about to be taken over by new owners,” he recalls. “I couldn’t afford to get into the project alone, so we ended up doing a shared deal.”
The business case mattered from the outset. “Most warbirds are owned by high net-worth individuals. In our case, we had to develop a viable business model. In addition, I am not one for seeing things stagnate. Having gone to the effort of building a flyable Hurricane, it needs to be flown. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see her flown for 100 hours a year. The problem we face is that most able pilots can’t afford more than a few hours.”
“My heart sank”
Kirkpatrick’s own path into the aircraft showed him exactly why an affordable, structured route was needed. When he was first told what the necessary Harvard time would cost, “my heart sank.”
Chance intervened. “I happened to be at Hawker Restorations when I was told this, and there was a visiting American neurosurgeon there. He’d retired in his 50s, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about that, Kirk. I’ve got a Harvard in North Carolina. Please come over, all you need to do is put petrol in it.’
“So, I did. I spent two separate weeks out there and gathered about 25 hours, which taught me the mechanics of the aeroplane. But of course, in the States you have runways on which you could land a Shuttle, so you have all the time in the world to sort yourself out. Come to a busy place like Duxford, with a short downwind leg and three aircraft in the circuit, and it all becomes very different.”
When he was introduced to the Aircraft Restoration Company, the verdict was blunt. “They immediately threw that experience into the bin and said I’d have to start again — and they were absolutely right. I did an additional 15 hours of Harvard flying here before I went solo in the Hurricane, so it took me about 40 hours altogether, but over quite a long period of time.”
And there, he says, is the lesson the programme is built around: “In retrospect, if you can compress the training into two or three months rather than two or three years, it makes a considerable difference.”
The pathway: Pitts, Harvard, Hurricane
The training link is with T-6 Harvard Ltd, long established at Duxford, operating Canadian Car and Foundry-built Harvard IV G-BJST — wartime RAF desert camouflage, and the name Wacky Wabbit. As things stand it is the only UK-based organisation offering solo flying after conversion onto type.
“It is much more straightforward to do with the Harvard, because it is operated on a certificate of airworthiness and therefore available for hire. It is the perfect training aircraft to move on to the Hurricane.”
“The guys who operate the aircraft are extremely experienced Harvard pilots,” says Kirkpatrick. “This makes for a relatively safe transition to the Hurricane. Very few people have that luxury.”
The programme targets qualified pilots with substantial experience already. Those needing further tailwheel, aerobatic or spin training get it in a Pitts S-2A Special — and one student is currently coming through the system from initial PPL upwards, taking in an aerobatic rating and the Harvard, with the Hurricane in view.
How much Harvard time is needed before soloing the fighter varies considerably. As the head of training puts it: “I’ve had several experienced pilots who think they’ll just need a quick whiz-round in the Harvard. Seventeen or so hours later, they are ready to go solo!”
Kirkpatrick is candid about why the step up is bigger than people assume. “There is an idea that if you can fly a Pitts you can fly anything. I don’t think that’s true. A Pitts, once you’ve got to grips with it, is a highly sympathetic aeroplane. That’s very different to warbirds, which don’t do what you tell them to do, particularly at low speed. They lose rudder authority, and on the ground it’s like trying to steer a heavy tanker with brakes that would barely stop a mountain bike. It’s a completely different discipline.”
“What was all the fuss about?”
V7497’s third co-owner, John Thorogood, became the latest pilot to solo the Hurricane, on 13 August — following his father. Sgt Pilot, later Sqn Ldr, Laurence Thorogood flew Hurricanes with No 87 Squadron in the Battle of Britain, claiming a Ju 88 destroyed and a Ju 87 damaged, and accumulated 550 Hurricane hours across England, India and the Arakan campaign in Burma.
“My father died in 2006,” says John, “but he was often heard to mutter, ‘Don’t worry, John. You’ll fly a Hurricane one day.’ The problem with parents wishing these things on you is that they stick.”
He logged 38½ hours on the Harvard — and, being a bit of a geek, counted the landings: 119.
“You don’t just jump into a Hurricane and fly her. It is wise to spend a good hour-and-a-bit taxiing her around the airfield… I vividly remember the first take-off, notable for the noise and heat from the radiator beneath my seat; a bit of a faff when operating the gear retraction for the first time, and being surprised by the force required to move the lever through the gate. Changing to the main tanks, reducing to climb power and departing the circuit, I had a minor panic about how on earth I was going to get her down in one piece.
“But the training asserted itself… Gear and flaps down at 120mph, harness locked and canopy locked open. Lined up on finals, good visibility over the nose, 85mph over the M11, 15kt wind straight down the runway, I rounded out and settled gently on three points. What was all the fuss about, I asked myself.”
V7497: shot down on her seventh sortie
Built at the Hawker factory in Langley, Berkshire, V7497 was delivered in September 1940 to No 501 Squadron at Kenley. On only her seventh operational sortie, on 28 September, she was shot down over Kent by a Messerschmitt Bf 109. Her pilot, Plt Off E. B. Rogers, bailed out successfully.
At the controls of the 109 was Oberlt Gustav Sprick, Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 26, who claimed 11 victories during the Battle of Britain. V7497 was his 20th overall, and brought him the Knight’s Cross, presented personally by Hitler. Some years ago, Peter Kirkpatrick was able to meet Sprick’s niece, through a German neurosurgeon friend.
Aviation archaeologists located the wreck near East Sutton in the 1990s. Hawker Restorations acquired the remains, registered the aircraft G-HRLI in 2002, and rebuilt her using numerous original items alongside new steel tubing and period-accurate fittings. Eye Tech Engineering overhauled the Merlin III. She flew again on 30 August 2018 from Elmsett, Suffolk, in the hands of type expert Stu Goldspink, and has been a fixture on the airshow circuit ever since.
The bigger question
With costs rising and airshow revenue diminishing, historic aircraft operations need new ways to stay viable — and new pilots to fly them. “The unanswered question,” says John Thorogood, “is, ‘When the present cadre of ageing warbird pilots have hung up their helmets, who is going to fly these aircraft?’ At some stage, we’ve got to get the new generation of young pilots flying them. How do we do that safely? Hopefully, operations like ours will open the way.”
Get involved
Hurricane 501 Operations is seeking pilots for the training programme, a new co-owner, and sponsorship to help meet V7497’s operating costs. A share in the aircraft is currently available.
“We would welcome any approaches from individuals who might be interested either from an active piloting point of view or as an investor,” says Peter Kirkpatrick.
Enquiries: [email protected]
Photography: Darren Harbar